It’s the most complicated emotion we can feel and yet, I find it the most important one. What would I be without the ability to love? What would the world be like without love?
I am not an expert. But I have learned some valuable lessons along the way that taught me the difference between infatuation, lust and love. I think, like most people, I had it wrong. I think that I fell for the Hollywood bullshit version of “love at first sight” and “falling head over heels.” I mistook strange obsession and unhealthy attachment, fear and adrenaline rush for love. I also mistook an old, and yet familiar feeling of having to prove my worth and value, for love. And hence, love was eluding me and was all but a fleeting and painful emotion I often wished I never felt at all.
I learned love from my friends. Yes, not from romance, not from movies but my friends. I learned what love truly was when I realized how I felt when someone truly, compassionately and honestly cared for me and valued me. I realized, if I ever was going to feel that strongly for a man AND had chemistry with him, I’d be set (provided he felt the same in return, of course).
But as we humans are, we make it complex. We want the whole package, as is sold to us by media and entertainment. The whole shabang, including the crazy obsession and the endless what ifs, fear and excitement, we so easily mistake for being in love. We are so confused and unable to form true and lasting bonds that we consistently feel disconnected, alone and unloved. And when we meet people who do not ignite the proverbial spark, we dismiss them as not the one, even though the spark is based on superficial and exterior things.
Love, as defined by psychology and as I see it, is a mutual admiration, respect, compassion, intimacy, care and commitment to another. Yes, we have to be attracted and have chemistry/sexual compatibility, but I found that the big bang theory doesn’t hold up.
Maybe, the “bang” is the thing that happens when your admiration, care, compassion, intimacy and commitment to the other grows. Maybe, you just wake up one day and find that you truly cannot be without the other, because they do make you a much better person and life without them, while possible, actually sucks. Maybe it truly is that thing where you grow closer, versus further apart as the time passes and you truly get enveloped within their whole essence and being – by choice, not by obsession.
I think my understanding of love is more of a bond than just a need. As I grow older I am changing, evolving and learning. My paradigms are shifting and so is my outlook on what I deemed once important, attractive, desirable and necessary. I think it’s all changing for the good. I feel calmer, even though my life is less exciting one could argue.
These days I believe more and doubt less. I don’t pick things apart, I don’t dissect them the way I used to and I don’t think them to death. It’s more quiet and there is no adrenaline rush. Crazy has left the building and for that I am super thankful.
And on that note, here is the latest TUT – A Note from the Universe:
“Fret not, Carmen. Time is on your side.
So are all the angels.
And “no” is never forever.
Yes, now, thank you –
The Universe”
